


Shadows in the Moonlight

by atsammy



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 15:14:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atsammy/pseuds/atsammy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma…  We aren’t talking about your world.  Things are different here, and I don’t just mean magic.  True love has power, and turning your back on it is harder than you can imagine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows in the Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> Set after episode 2x03, "Lady of the Lake." 
> 
> It has bothered me all season that we really didn't get to see Emma react to living in Fairy Tale Land, without any of modern conveniences that she has lived with her entire life, or learning anything about how life had been there before the Curse. Given that the creators said at Paley Fest on March 3 that each season covers roughly a year, this puts Snow and Emma in FTL for several months, they must have talked about it at some point.
> 
> Thanks to Allaine for the beta :)

It was late, the star-filled sky obscured by the trees and a few clouds, and Emma lay there, trying to sleep. She had done very little of it over the last month, between the underground cage and the knight and the _ogres_. Ogres. Seriously. Ogres, and Mulan, and Sleeping Beauty, and her mother was Snow White. But the stupid stars were wrong. And they were keeping her awake.

Footsteps on the edge of camp caught her attention, and through half-closed eyes she watched Mulan shake Mary Margaret's shoulder to wake her up. It must have been later than she thought, if it was time to change watches. After they'd fled the ruined palace, Mulan had shot down Emma's offer to stand one of the night watches cold, scoffing at the idea of someone who could not use a sword or a bow standing guard. It was worse, somehow, when Mary Margaret agreed.

She tried for a while longer to fall asleep, but nothing worked. She was uncomfortable on only a thin blanket on the ground, her clothes were rough from being hand washed in cold water, she was sick of the taste of the sage ash she'd been given to clean her teeth, and if she never ate another bite of rabbit again it would be too soon. If they ever made it back to Storybrooke, she was going to spend a week in a shower, and brush her teeth for a month, she really was. And she was definitely going to bring extra underwear wherever she went, even if she had to shove it in a pocket every day.

When the fire popped particularly loud across the camp, she gave up. She sat up carefully and looked around, finding Mary Margaret seated at the top of the small rise they'd made their camp at the base of. She made her way carefully across the camp, ignoring the way Mulan's eyes followed her, and walked up the hill.

"Mind if I join you?" she asked quietly, coming to a halt beside Mary Margaret.

It was hard, as it had been hard every day for the last four weeks, for Emma to face the bright smile that Mary Margaret gave her when they were alone. It was the smile of a mother in the presence of a beloved child, and Emma still had no idea how to deal with that. Any of it.

"Can't sleep?" Mary Margaret asked, once Emma had seated herself beside her, the full quiver on the ground between them.

"No," Emma sighed. "Not tonight."

"Not any night," she corrected, and Emma felt herself blush in the pale moonlight.

She refused to look at her, however, and instead looked out over the darkened horizon. Their campsite was a few miles inland in the woods, but the water was still visible from the hilltop, with waves visibly rippling along the distant shore line.

"I guess. It's just... Different. Here. I mean, I slept on some pretty crappy mattresses in foster care, but I rarely slept outside. If I did, it was in a car." Emma thought over what she’d just said, and to whom, and winced. “I’m sorry…”

“No, Emma. I’m sorry,” Mary Margaret replied, her voice soft. Emma looked over at her, and she was staring down at the bow resting across her lap. “We… I sent you to that world, with no one. We could have kept you with us, and then David wouldn’t have been in a coma, and you were right, we would have been together.”

Emma looked away again, biting at her lower lip. “I shouldn’t have said that.” They sat quietly for a while, listening to the leaves rustle in the night air. “I’ve been thinking about it,” she offered. 

“And?”

“If you hadn’t let me go… the curse would never have been broken. I mean, if it was like Henry’s book said, and for twenty eight years no one in Storybrooke aged and nothing ever changed, I would have stayed a newborn for… eternity. The curse would never have been broken. So, you had to let me go. So that I could… come back.” It was something that she had been thinking hard about, since they’d arrived here. Once the initial shock had started to wear away, and everything actually became real, sometime around the first ogre, she’d grown up. It was weird. 

She risked a glance to the side, and Mary Margaret was gazing out again over the land, but a tear had trailed its way down her cheek. Emma had a feeling that she wasn’t actually seeing anything out there, and she reached out a hand and rested it on her mother’s arm. In a heartbeat, Mary Margaret drew in a deep breath and covered Emma’s hand with her own and clung to it. 

They sat there in the darkness, and in the shadow of the moonlight Emma thought that maybe she could see the faint outline of the ruins they’d left behind days before. “What was it like?” she asked absently, trying to remember details of the room she’d spent so little time in.

“What was what like?” Mary Margaret’s voice had settled, the tremor that had been there before barely noticeable. 

“Here. Living here, I mean. Before.”

“Oh. Different, from what you are used to. A lot like this,” Mary Margaret nodded her head in the direction of the trees. “Our land was very prosperous, and peaceful. My father… my father was a good king, who loved his family and his people. You can’t see it, with the haze I mean, but we are in a huge valley, with mountains taller than Mt. Everest all around us, and the lake feeds into the sea at the end. It was… very beautiful.”

“Just how big is this place?” They’d been dragged for four days from where they’d arrived to the refugee camp, and had spent the remaining time hiking around and for all Emma knew they had been going in circles. 

“This land? I don’t actually know,” Mary Margaret replied, thoughtful. “I never really thought about it in size, before. Just in time. It took three days to get from David’s palace to my father’s, on horseback. The dwarven mines were… two days away? I think. I only went there once, with my mother. But you could ride from one corner of our kingdom to the farthest in about two days, at full gallop.”

“Are we still on your land?”

Mary Margaret nodded again. “Yes. Actually, we aren’t far from where I first met Regina.” She turned, and pointed to the left of where their fire was. “Walk about an hour or so further in, and her family home was there.”

“Somehow I can’t picture Regina living somewhere like this.”

“She wasn’t always the evil queen, Emma,” Mary Margaret chided. “The first time we met, she saved my life.”

The wistfulness in Mary Margaret’s voice threw Emma more than the words she spoke. She didn’t think that she’d ever heard Regina spoken of with… anything remotely akin to affection. Not even by Henry. “She saved your life?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. What happened?”

“Father and I were on our way back from the Marchlands; we’d gone to visit with an old friend of his. Sir Maurice’s wife had recently died, and they’d hoped that I could be of some comfort to his daughter. I was ten, and she was eight, the same age I was when Mother died. While we were riding, something spooked my horse, and she raced off. I couldn’t stop her, and though my father’s guards came after me, out of nowhere came this young woman on horseback who pulled me off the horse before I fell.”

“Regina?”

“Yeah. She was an incredible rider, and so beautiful and kind to me. I thought that she was amazing.”

“So, not always the evil queen. Fair enough.”

“Not then, anyway.”

Conversation tapered off there for awhile. Emma pulled her jacket tighter around her, wishing again that the lining of the leather jacket was thicker. 

“What about Gold?” she asked suddenly, remembering the sneer on his face when they’d confronted him about the wraith.

“Gold? What about him?”

“What is his back story? I mean, if Regina wasn’t always a bitch, what’s his deal? He’s only in Henry’s book as a side character to some of the stories.”

When Mary Margaret didn’t reply right away, Emma looked over to see the contemplative expression on her face. 

“I… really can’t say,” Mary Margaret finally answered.

“Is it some big secret?”

“Well, yes. And no. I mean, I honestly don’t know much about it. Everyone grew up hearing about the Dark One; his name was used to scare little children into not breaking promises, because everyone knows the Dark One comes after deal breakers. But the stories of him go back… hundreds of years? I think? At least that long.” 

“Hundreds of years? Just how old is this guy?”

“I don’t know. Rumplestiltskin hasn’t always been the Dark One, though. I know that much. After we took back the kingdom from King George, I looked through old treaties and contracts, and there were references to him by name and title going back at least to the First Ogre Wars, over three hundred years ago. Going back further, there was a different name in the records, and further back, another one.” Mary Margaret shrugged. “I didn’t know him by anything other than ‘The Dark One’ until after I met David. Red was the one who told me his name, because that was the only way you could call for his help, was if you knew his true name.”

“You made a deal with Rumplestiltskin?” Emma didn’t know why she was surprised about that, really, but she was. “Why?”

Mary Margaret surprised them both by laughing at the indignation in Emma’s voice. “You’ve made a deal with him, too, Emma. Don’t sound so surprised.”

“I never…”

“You did. To get Mr. Gold to abandon the adoption papers that Ashley had signed. That favor you owe him was his price for going back on a deal sealed by magic before Regina cast her curse.”

“But… Wait, that was a deal? She made a deal to give up her child?” 

“Ella did, yes. Not that she knew it right away; she would never have agreed to it any more than Ashley truly agreed to put Alexandra up for adoption. She’d asked for help leaving a wretched life of servitude to her step family, and Rumplestiltskin offered it in return for a price to be paid later. That price turned out to be her first-born child.” 

“Wow.” Emma mulled that over for a few moments. “I mean, the story of Rumplestiltskin had him requiring the miller’s daughter’s first born child, but given how different Henry’s stories are, I didn’t think he actually… you know… did that.”

“He doesn’t always, I don’t think. Ella is the only one I know of, but there could be more. I know he has dealt in children, but not always as a payment.”

“What did he want from you?” When Mary Margaret turned towards her, startled, Emma clarified, “You said you’d made a deal with him?”

“Oh. Right. Right. Well… the first time was a strand of my hair, and the second time was a name.”

“For the true love potion.” A small smile crossed Mary Margaret’s lips, one that Emma found herself returning. “He told me he made his potion with strands of your hair, and David’s.”

“It’s the most powerful magic of all,” Mary Margaret offered. “And true love’s kiss can break any curse.”

“What did you ask for? Help fighting Regina?”

Mary Margaret shook her head. “No. We could handle her. We could even handle Rumplestiltskin.”

“Then, what?”

“The first time… to forget your father. And the second was to find out what Regina was planning to do.”

“Oh. Was it… Why’d you want to forget him?”

Mary Margaret laughed again, bitterly. “It’s funny how the curse acted, you know? King George forced him to agree to marry King Midas’ daughter, and threatened his life if I didn’t tell him I didn’t want him. So I did, and it was, at the time, the hardest thing that I had ever had to do, and I… just wanted to forget. When Red told me about Rumplestiltskin, he seemed like the only answer.”

“But… I mean, Mary Margaret, I know you love him, but he was just a guy. Why not just move on?”

“Emma… We aren’t talking about your world. Things are different here, and I don’t just mean magic. True love has power, and turning your back on it is harder than you can imagine. It’s not just a matter of finding another guy, or moving to a new town.” 

Emma watched her hands as they fiddled with the bow string, and then spun the ring that Mary Margaret had always worn around her finger. “I guess I can see that,” she acknowledged. “True love must be nice.”

The smile that appeared on Mary Margaret’s face would have lit the Sun. “It is. It is wonderful. But,” and she cut a glance over at Emma as she sobered slightly, “that doesn’t mean that it isn’t hard work. Even the purest love must be fought for.”

Emma smiled, rueful. “Yeah, I think I’m starting to see that.” An owl overhead hooted as it landed on a branch high in the tree tops. She looked up towards it, and saw that the clouds had drifted off, and there were stars visible through the tree leaves once more. They didn’t seem so odd, any more. Not like they had even an hour before. “Does everyone from this land have a true love?”

“I suppose so,” Mary Margaret answered. “I don’t see why they wouldn’t. Whether they ever find them, or act on it, is a different story, but I think it would be very unfair if true love were only a possibly for a small number of people. True love is true love. It knows no borders, or class.”

Emma pondered that for awhile, finding nothing disagreeable with the statement. Then she had a thought that made her laugh out loud at the preposterousness of it.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. I just… Do you think Mr. Gold has a true love? Mr. Gold, Rumplestiltskin, whatever his name is?”

“Maybe. I don’t know? Maybe he did, before he became the Dark One? I can’t picture someone who would have wanted to be with him afterwards. He was… not easy to deal with,” Mary Margaret said delicately. “I wouldn’t say that he was evil, like Regina was. But he was cruel in a way that she wasn’t. If how he looks as Mr. Gold is how he looked before he became the Dark One, then his cruelty changed him. If there was a true love for someone like him… Well, they would have been a very special person indeed.”

That the people in Storybrooke didn’t look like they had in Fairy Tale Land was something Emma had never considered, and it distracted her from her original point. Well, other than August, and his wooden self. That was still a trip to think about. “Do all of you look different?” She hesitated to clarify her question, which was just as well, as Mary Margaret answered anyway.

“Not really,” she said, shaking her head. “The clothes we wear, obviously, are the biggest change. And my hair has never been as short as it is since I was a child. But otherwise, no one else that I can think of looks different.” She paused, and added, “Well, except for the fairies. And Jiminy. Sydney. The dwarves were shorter here. Other than that, no one.”

“Huh.” 

They sat there in comfortable silence as the night sky darkened further as clouds covered the moon. Emma shifted, bending her knees enough to wrap her arms around them. She could feel it, somehow, when Mary Margaret stopped watching their surroundings and rested her gaze on her. Even so, she tensed when Mary Margaret reached out and touched her shoulder, played with the ends of her hair. 

“I wish that things had been different,” Mary Margaret whispered, and Emma knew that if she turned to face her, there would be tears on her cheeks. “Letting you go, letting David take you from me when I’d only held you in my arms for five minutes… Letting you grow up without your mother. I will _never_ forgive myself for that.” 

Emma drew in a long, ragged breath, surprised to find her own cheeks wet when she rubbed at them. Shaking her head, she turned and pulled Mary Margaret to her, holding her tight when Mary Margaret clung to her, her body trembling as she cried. 

“I forgive you,” she whispered, the words in the air before Emma realized she’d thought them. But they were the truth, no matter what else lay before them. If there was one thing that Emma had learned in the last month, besides not making noise around ogres, it was that the Mary Margaret who was Snow White loved her and wanted to protect her more than anything, more than her own life. And while the pain of twenty-eight years alone would always be there, she knew now, that she had a family, one that had desperately wanted her. One that gave up literally _everything_ for her. It was a heady business, this having parents. Having a family. They just needed to get back to it.


End file.
